At 4:10 PM -0700 3/14/09, Azalais Aranxta wrote:
>On Sat, 14 Mar 2009, Natali Vilic wrote:
>[...]
>is still driving you out of your mind, and you have reached the
>point where it's say something or do something, you're often at a
>loss for words as to what to say to the parent.
Hm. Also true. (What I try to do, as a parent, is give a sympathetic
wry grin if I'm noticed. Sometimes I couch a bit of advice to my own
kid, trying to take a sympathetic tack, if it's something that I know
will set her off commenting about it loudly.)
Sometimes a mellow-toned "Well, hey there" is pretty good for notifying
a parent that the kid is encroaching into one's space. Or "Eek! I
didn't see you there! You okay?"
Of course, the parent who _doesn't_ notice this is either too worn-
out or too oblivious-to-others-in-general, so it falls down if you
hit those ends of the bellcurves. *sigh*
At 11:02 PM -0400 3/14/09, quietann wrote:
>What a contrast. It seems like the parents who are open to other,
>known adults dealing with their kids end up with nicer kids. The kids
>who are horrid are the ones whose parents don't want anyone else
>"parenting" their Precious Baby Darlings under any circumstances.
There is a balance, sometimes, though -- people trying certain tactics
that would work on neurotypical kids... Well, one of the reasons I believe
my kid _isn't_ neurotypical is that she reacts completely oppositely.
If she's doing something troublesome, or having an emotional melt-down,
while "appeasement" isn't the answer, the only way to get past it is to
engage her logical side -- often with words and not a simple time-out,
if in public -- or "give in" by getting her some blood sugar.
Not saying that your example is one of those, mind! But it can be
contextual. (And, potentially, a reasonable intervention can be met
with all the pent-up hostility for all the _non-working_ attempts
at interventions that only make things worse. Definitely not saying
that your example qualifies for _that_, either! Trying to get common
politeness out of someone is the goal, even if the means have certain
quirks that _do_ work better for the parents-who-have-lived-with-this-
cruft-and-know-the-code-words. "That's going to cause red thoughts,
honey.")
--
--Beth, arcangel at io.comhttp://www.io.com/~arcangel/